Grimm Musings
by Anni Re
Summary: Bucky and Steve go to see a movie back in 1938. It's strange how that story keeps popping up in their lives. Light StarBucks.


Grimm Musings

By: Anni Re

One random Wednesday in February 1938, Bucky rapped on the window of Steve's dilapidated Brooklyn apartment with a rolled up newspaper. "Hey punk," he said, shaking the snow out of his hair.

"Hey Buck," Steve replied. Bucky's broad shoulders set against Steve's diminutive living room made Bucky look like a giant in a dollhouse. However, Bucky didn't seem to know or care and plopped himself into one of Steve's spindly kitchen chairs, almost reclining in it, crossing his legs at the ankles. "Don't you have work today?"

"Got the day off," said Bucky, unfurling the pages, idly reading. "Thought maybe you'd like to go see a flicker."

Steve perked up. Steve liked flickers when they weren't expensive. He liked Errol Flynn swashbucklers and thought Olivia de Havilland was the prettiest dame he'd ever seen. "What do you have in mind?"

"I hear that Alexander's Ragtime Band is playing at The Cupola."

Steve shook his head. "Nah. They charge too much for tickets there."

"Red River Range is at that place down in south Queens." Steve and Bucky both gave each other a look the moment it passed Bucky's lips before they nixed that idea. It was a bad enough walk as it was when Steve would blow over at the first winter breeze, but no Brooklyn boy worth his scrap would be caught dead in Queens. "There's also a little place on 56th that's not far from here."

"What's on?" asked Steve.

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," said Bucky.

Steve made a face. "Ain't that a kids flick," he asked. Steve never really liked the toons before the main pictures. He dismissed them as something for cheap laughs without much story or substance to them.

Bucky shrugged his shoulders, his palms spread in supplication. "I don't know Steve. Harry took his girl to see it and they had a good time."

Steve shoved his hands in his pockets, thumbing his change. He was poor enough to know not to spend his spare money just to eat up an afternoon.

"Come on," Bucky coaxed. "It's just a dime. And even if it's no good, what else are we going to do today?"

Steve glanced out his grimy window. The snow was falling steadily in big, fat flakes. Bucky had a point. Coney Island would be closed and none of the street vendors would be in the Park. The Dodgers had an away game and Steve would just as soon get caught in Yankee Stadium as he would strolling through Queens. The weather would make the radio not work right and he didn't want to lose what money he had playing cards with Bucky when he could be spending it going to a flicker, even a bad one.

"All right Bucky, all right," said Steve. Steve heard Bucky pick himself up out of his chair while he grabbed his coat and slipped it onto his wiry frame.

Bucky splurged on a bag of peanuts and the shoved the striped bag between the two of them when they sat down on the scratchy velveteen seats, munching as bits of shell fluttered around their feet like ticker tape. Before the house lights dimmed, Steve saw there were about four other people sitting around he and Bucky. Most of them were kids and there was an older man in the back who looked like a dime was a fair trade for an hour and a half of warmth. Steve sat back in his seat, cracking a nut audibly.

Steve had to actively stop himself from rolling his eyes when he saw that a cartoon was coming before a cartoon. Steve rustled the bag towards him and pulled out a fistful of nuts while the black and white mouse jigged around the screen, whistling on his steamboat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bucky's silhouette laughing behind his hand. Steve's eyes softened and tried to be quieter as he grabbed for the peanuts, not wanting to spoil Bucky's good time.

Steve's hand loosened around his handful, sending some of the nuts pattering to the carpeted floor when the opening scene lit up the screen. It was…pretty; very pretty. The artist in him immediately assessed the soft line work, the colors of the flora and fauna and the small detail work of the castle set in the distance on the edge of a rocky bluff over looking a grey blue sea. It looked like a painting, not some grainy drawing from an overused sketchbook. The opening chords boomed from behind him in the projection booth, majestic and somber, like from Captain Blood. It wasn't shrill and sugary like other cartoons he'd seen. Steve tilted his head, the peanuts resting in his palm, intrigued.

The peanuts soon lay forgotten, a few more of them falling to the floor while Steve tapped his foot to a new song. They were cheery and catchy, but they didn't distract or detract from the flicker and paired well with the darker moments, like the evil queen transforming into a misshapen hag in a storm of screaming violins and splashes of green and purple. Steve didn't think he breathed after the poisoned apple, all the way through the cinematic chase where the witch fell to her death, to the quiet wake of the grieving dwarfs laying out their little princess amid the soft glow of candles, much like how Steve laid out his own mother—Geeze, he was crying. Steve sat very still, elbows on knees as the prince lifted the lid of the glass coffin. Only when the chorus lifted and Snow White stirred did Steve run a finger under his eye. The house lights lifted and Steve heard the old man behind him clap a few times before shuffling out.

Steve almost jumped when Bucky clapped him on the shoulder "You didn't eat your half of the peanuts," he said.

Steve looked down at the peanuts that lay forgotten in his lap. He scooped them back into the bag. "Here you take them. I'm not hungry."

Bucky cracked a grin as he wadded up the wrapping and shoved it down into his pocket. "Now I know why you're so skinny." Bucky put his hand on Steve's shoulder, steering him out onto the street. "Come on."

The short winter days made the sun set early, leaving Steve and Bucky to trudge their way back to Steve's apartment in a state of semi-darkness. The snowfall had made drifts on the sidewalk, soaking through Steve's shoes. He suppressed a shiver. "So," said Bucky, walking through the salted snow like it didn't bother him. "I know that was probably not the movie you wanted to see, but hey, it was a good way to kill an afternoon—"

"I liked it," said Steve, "it was good."

"Oh," said Bucky, surprised. "Oh. I'm glad you liked it then."

"You didn't?" asked Steve, mirroring Bucky's look of surprise.

"I mean it was okay," said Bucky, kind of had a silly ending though. I mean—yeah that would be really nice if you could cure poison with a kiss on the lips." Bucky broke off his own monologue with a laugh. "Would have gone on to be a doctor if it were that easy to kiss girls, you know?"

Steve elbowed Bucky in the ribs and shared part of his laugh. He wanted to tell Bucky that he thought he was wrong, he just didn't know how to say it. The flicker just felt right. In that intimate, perfect moment, it felt right, like everything had been building up to that moment and anything else would have cheapened. Steve shuddered, but he wasn't sure if it was from the cold.

"You chilly, Steve?" Bucky swung his arm over the smaller man's shoulder and pulled him tight to his side. "Aw, Stevie, your socks must be soaked through. Come on let's get you home."

"I'm alright," said Steve even though there was a good amount of slush in his soles. "Sorry you didn't like the movie."

Bucky shook him a little, his arm almost wrapping around Steve's side. "It's alright. As you said, it was just a kids toon. But, hey, you liked it so it was money well spent for you and I got to spend the day with my best pal so that was money well spent for me."

Steve and Bucky continued to chat about baseball and Bucky's job and anything else that come to mind, brushing by couples that were hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm, cheek-to-cheek, in the half light of the city. Steve rested his head against Bucky's shoulder as they walked. On any other evening it would have been because Bucky basically had him in a bear hug and his head had nowhere else to go. Tonight, it was because it felt right.

Steve's head remained on Bucky's shoulder all the way back to his apartment, only uncurling himself from the warm body when he had to fish out his house key from his thin coat. His fingers ran over a split seam in his pocket and he hoped he didn't lose it on the street again. Steve heard Bucky's shoes crunch through the crisp snow and kick the brick away from where he hid his spare key. "Here," said Bucky, coming back to Steve.

"Thanks." Steve turned to take the key when a rush of cold air ran through him. The fingers on his outstretched hand almost curled back onto themselves in an attempt to bury themselves inside Steve's shirtsleeve.

"Geeze, Steve. Where are your gloves?" asked Bucky grabbing at Steve's hands and rubbing them between his own.

"Wore them out," Steve mumbled.

Bucky cuffed Steve gently on the side of the head. "Why didn't you say anything?" Bucky stripped off his black leather gloves and roughly pushed them into Steve's hands. "Here, these should keep for a while."

"Bucky I'm not taking your gloves," Steve protested.

"Yes, you are," said Bucky firmly. "You'll get sick if you don't stay warm, string bean."

"They're expensive."

"They're not that expensive."

"No."

"Steve, if you don't take them now, I'll just leave them in your apartment for you to find later."

Steve felt a flicker of anger warm him in spite of the cold. "You don't have to take care of me Bucky," said Steve, trying to push Bucky's hands away. "I'm not your responsibility."

Bucky's larger hands grabbed onto Steve's and held them, gloves and house key pinned between their palms. "I don't have to do anything," said Bucky. "I want to, and I want to because I care."

Steve looked sheepishly up at Bucky's face. The prince didn't have to spend months searching for his sleeping princess; by Bucky's logic there would've been easier princesses to find. But, he did. A wild thought ran through Steve's mind while the wind whipped around the breezeway, chilling Bucky's cheeks, giving his face a pale look, but making his lips all the redder. Steve didn't think on it any longer. It felt right. Stretching his neck, Steve sealed his mouth around Bucky's. His lips tasted like peanut salt and were thinner than he expected, but they were warm.

It lasted for minutes and moments at the same time, breaking instantly when Steve felt Bucky's arms latch onto his elbows. Steve jerked his head back, his mouth slightly parted, even more slightly puckered. Bucky's eyes were as big and blue as Staffordshire china, his expression unreadable. The flush on Bucky's lips spread to Steve's cheeks. Suddenly it was late August rather than early February. "Sorry," said Steve quickly, staring down at his snow soaked shoes. "I shouldn't have done that." Bucky liked girls. He went out with girls almost every weekend. He joked about becoming a doctor just so he could kiss girls.

"You're right," said Bucky. Steve was painfully aware of Bucky's grip on his elbows. He wished Bucky would just punch him or throw him down the fire escape and get it over with. "You should've done that sooner."

Today was apparently the day Steve mimicked all of Bucky's faces of shock and confusion. "Wha—" but Steve's query was cut off by Bucky kissing him, only now there was more heat and motion. Steve wanted to pull his lips away to make sure the skin hadn't been singed, but all Steve could do was cling to Bucky's coat. Dimly, he heard his house key being jammed into the lock and the door jimmied open as Bucky backed the pair of them into the privacy of Steve's apartment.

One of the only things the Winter Soldier was allowed to do when he wasn't in cryosleep or killing people was reading. Hydra didn't store their weapon in the same safe house twice. When the Winter Soldier was released for a mission he was typically set up in the house of someone who used the space as a summer getaway or had gone on vacation to the Maldives for two weeks. The Winter Soldier slept in their beds, ate off their dishes and read their books. While he was in D.C he resided in some college girl's studio apartment while she was visiting family in Elizabethtown. The Winter Soldier was halfway through Slaughterhouse Five when his satellite phone went off and a voice riddled with radio static told him the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was on the move. _And so it goes._

One time, when they were packing him back in ice, the Winter Solider overheard one of the technicians wonder why their operant read so much, considering when they wiped his brain he wouldn't remember any of them. The Winter Soldier didn't hear anything else because the glass coffin slid around him and a rush of cold air would give him goose pimples and make his breath catch in his chest. It only felt like a blink in time before he was back out again; blank.

However, even if he didn't remember the books, even if he didn't remember the technicians saying he would forget the books, the Winter Solider kept reading whatever he could find and sometimes, if a blue moon was hanging in the sky and a horseshoe on the door, he would sporadically—unconsciously—accidentally—remember something. The Winter Soldier never remembered the book, nor did he remember the writer or the character that said it; he just had phrases and run on sentences fall into his head, half formed and foggy. He never figured out what made him remember what he was programmed to forget. It was too random. Things like catching the faint scent of newspaper print, feeling snow melt onto his scalp, tilting himself just so in a chair made his mind a bucket at the end of a storm drain. _Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice._

It was the one thing the Winter Soldier kept from his handlers. He even made a game out of it. Decade after decade, whenever he was bored, the Winter Soldier would lay on the floor of whatever borrowed home he found himself in and hypnotized himself with the ceiling fan or the hum of the florescent lighting. He would write what he would remember on the back of his eyelids in handwriting he thought was his, but he wasn't sure. _Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. I am, I am, I am. I give to you the mausoleum of all hope and desire. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it. We were the people who were not in the papers. But, there is no real me, only an enmity, something illusory. Terror made me cruel._ _It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends. Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge, till on the haunting flairs we turned our backs and towards our distant rest began to trudge. Rage against the dying of the light. Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind._ But this hardly ever happened. His handlers didn't give him permission to be bored. And it never happened on a mission.

 _For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough to know they are in peril; well enough they know the causes of that peril; never the less the sea is the sea and these drowning men do drown._ It flashed across the Winter Soldier's vision like lines of lighting when he hit the chilled water of the Potomac. The cold bit at his injuries and the weight of his gear was trying to drag him down farther into the depths. The water churned and frothed as jagged pieces of metal from the airships above followed him in his dive, haloed by bubbles and petroleum. He'd have to hurry or the whole craft would crush them. The Winter Soldier strained to see underwater, his senses disquietingly muted. He pumped his arm, his shoulder screaming at him, also hearing the faint whir of his prosthetic trying to push the water back into the river and out of his animatronics.

If he blinked at the wrong time he would have missed it; that stripe of red in the murky distance. The Winter Solder kicked his legs, his bulky boots making motion all the more difficult. As he got closer that flicker of red became more defined, knitting together in the murk to make a uniform, limbs lying limp as they floated, and a shock of short blond hair. The Winter Soldier dodged another javelin like piece of steel that carved its way through the water. In that same movement, the Winter Solider grabbed Captain America around his trimmed hips, drawing him tight to his chest. They were so close to the bottom of the Potomac that the Winter Solider kicked off the sandy surface to propel them back up, one arm pulling the pair through the liquid. The Winter Solider felt his lungs tighten and he, almost clinically, wondered if Captain America had tried to take a breath. The blond head rolled onto his shoulder, but with a twist of the joint, the Winter Soldier rolled it back off.

The Winter Solder broke the surface, hauling Captain America up with him. The air that rushed into his body was almost as cold as the water he bobbed in, churning and frothy from fiery debris. His head swiveled around, ever assessing, and he was almost surprised no one was shooting at them. The Winter Soldier spat out a mouthful of water before struggling to swim to shore. The concept was alien to him. His handlers had never sent him on a rescue mission before. Captain America's head lolled back onto his shoulder again and the Winter Soldier readjusted, grappling his mission's chest harness rather than around his waist. This freed up his movement and the Winter Soldier cut through the grey water, towing Captain America behind him. Soon they reached the rocky shore.

The Winter Soldier's thigh screamed where the metal beamed had pinned him, but he didn't make a sound. He limped over the pebbly, uneven terrain, water kicking up around his calves, Captain America hanging off the ends of his fingers. With two firm jerks the Winter Soldier dragged Captain America to dry land. He raked his hand though his wet hair and leaned on his good leg. He heard police sirens and helicopters. He would need to leave soon. Where to he didn't know, but that was a problem for later. The Winter Soldier chanced a glace down at Captain America and, with a slight uptick of his eyebrow, noted the faint, back of the throat gasping of a man struggling to breathe.

 _Not long after that, towards evening, the seven dwarfs came home and were terrified to see their dear Snow White lying on the ground, without life or motion; they raised her up and when they saw how tightly she was laced they cut the lace in two; then slowly she began to draw breath, and little by little returned to life._ The Winter Soldier knelt down by Captain America, not on his knees, but rather the balls of his feet so he could run. The Winter Soldier pulled at his mission's harnesses and belt, removing and loosening his gear with the click and clatter of buckles and clasps. He pulled the navy fabric of Captain America's uniform away from his throat, exposing his Adam's apple quivering beneath his skin. Captain America's pulse beat high and fast beneath the Winter Soldier's fingers, but he was still chocking on the water he had undoubtedly swallowed.

The Winter Soldier braced his hands on the back of Captain America's head, bits of wet, dirty hair falling between his fingers. It was grimy, but soft. It had a pleasant feeling under his palm. The Winter Soldier couldn't remember defining anything as pleasant. _When they saw Snow White lying on the ground dead, they thought directly it was the stepmother's doing, and looked about, found the poisoned comb, and no sooner had they drawn it out of her hair than Snow White came back to herself._ The Winter Soldier fisted Captain America's hair, forcibly pulling his head back. His pale lips opened in the process and the Winter Soldier's vibranium hand clasped Captain America's jaw, holding it in place as he breathed a steady stream of air into his mouth.

For the second time in too short a time the Winter Soldier found something pleasurable. The lips underneath his were warm despite the water. He liked the feel of that thin skin, that barely distinguishable plumpness. He liked kissing even though he had no memory of doing it before. Both his hands relaxed slightly and he wondered what it would be like if he rolled his jaw. But then, the Winter Soldier remembered himself and he puffed more air into Captain America's lungs. _The poisonous piece of apple, which Snow White had bitten off, came out of her throat. And before long she opened her eyes._

Captain America's chest heaved and the Winter Soldier moved away in time as he coughed up mouthfuls of water. Captain America's head turned instinctively sideways and the water rolled out of his mouth along with silt and gobs of spit. The Winter Soldier didn't touch him, only observed as Captain America's body stilled, breathing steadily. The purple welts on the side of his face were swelling his eye shut and there was a split in his lip. The Winter Soldier jerked when he heard the rhythmic thwapping of helicopter blades and stood up from where he was squatting. His mission was over. Quietly, but without much caution, the Winter Soldier retreated into the darkness of the woods without sparring a glace at the unconscious man on the riverbank. He licked his lips, tasting something like salt, and concluded it must have been the blood.

Steve had gotten so used to reading Bucky's vitals he could recite them on command. He could look at the security footage of Bucky in his cryo-induced coma and tell if he was dreaming by the way he breathed. He could look at the literal reams of pages from Bucky's brain scans and tell which distraubance in his readings were caused by which trigger word. Steve's eyes flicked to the monitors: Bucky's vitals were as stable as ever, he was sleeping rather than dreaming, and after one final reading of the Hydra sequencing, Bucky's brain wave patterns didn't shift to the Winter Soldier's.

"Captain Rogers," said a Wakandan doctor, walking up beside him. "I'm going to wake him up now."

Steve nodded, standing up to allow the tall, lithe physician to take his place at the consol. There was no one else in the observation room above the lab where Bucky was being housed. Steve thought on such a day there would be at least a couple of casual bystanders, if not the King of Wakanda himself; but it was just she him and Bucky a flight of stairs below them. Steve watched her red and gold fingernails clatter across the keyboard, feeling out of place in the sterile, overly starched environment that had become his second home. Exhaustion, relief and joy were all knotted together in a nervous ball in his stomach. "Can I…" he said, suddenly uncertain. "Can I go in and be there when he…you know, wakes up?"

"Of course," said the doctor, as pleasant as can be. "Go right on down."

Her cheeriness instilled in Steve a confidence he lacked as he made his way out of the observation room into the lab below. Steve gripped the handrail on the way down, not trusting his own legs. The MRI and CT machines had been removed and the doctors, nurses and psychiatrists that had routinely bustled around the med bay were absent. There was only a hospital bed waiting to be wheeled into a nearby recover room and the cryo chamber itself.

A thin layer of frost obscured the glass and Steve could make out the spindlings of ice that threaded through Bucky's hair and stubble. It also created patches of crystalized fractals across his cheeks and collarbone. Steve put his hand on the glass chamber and pulled back from the chill. He looked over his shoulder at the mirror glass window of the observation room before the PA system pinged on.

"It will take a few minutes," the doctor sounding sonorous, "we're heating up the chamber slowly so his body can equilibrate." There was a beat of silence before the PA echoed around the room again. "You can talk to him if you want, Captain Rogers. Hearing is always the first thing that comes back."

Being given permission to speak didn't make the silence any less uncomfortable. Steve drug a white plastic chair and folded himself into it, twiddling his thumbs. "Hey Buck," said Steve, feeling awkward, "they're waking you up today. Of course, I don't need to tell you that…uh…You're you again, which is great, even though you weren't ever really not you. Oh, the Cubs won the World Series…." Steve continued stiltedly prattling for several minutes until he lapsed into silence. But, the ultra quiet of the lab, where even the machines were muted, was just as painful at his attempts at small talk. Steve looked down at the white tiled floor, palms patting his knees as he once again cut off his one sided conversation mid sentence. His fingers found a rhythm and, if only to have something to break the silence, he drummed on his thighs, murmuring lyrics to himself. "He was the top man at his craft, but then his number came up and he was gone with the draft. He's in the army now…" Steve glanced up at Bucky, and a small smile made a dimple in his cheek. Bucky always liked the Andrew Sisters and big band music he could dance to. He spent his grocery money on records and led the Howling Commandos in raucous renditions of the radio's latest hits, made sour by flat notes and even flatter beer.

Steve continued to riff up and down his legs, singing smatterings of songs he could remember from Bing Crosby to Billie Holiday. "Once I built a railroad, made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a railroad, now it's done. Brother can you spare a dime….I got my bag, I got my reservation. Spent each dime I could afford. Like a child in wild anticipation I long to hear that all aboard….All aboard! All aboard! There's gonna be a certain party at the station. Satin and lace, I used to call funny face. Well, he's gonna cry unit I tell him that I'll never roam. So Chattanooga Choo Choo won't you choo choo me home."

Steve's beats slowed till they stopped all together. His voice cracked on high notes and he coughed to readjust his range. His index finger drew lazy patterns across his jean. His fingernails had a purple look to them and the exposed skin on his arm had goose pimples. Even in the heart of Africa, this room still managed to make Steve shiver. He crossed his arms and ran his hands over his skin. He sighed, tilting back in the chair, vacantly staring up at the ceiling, waiting for something to happen. "Some day when spring is here," he sang, more to himself, some half forgotten song who's artist was lost to him, "we'll find a low anew. And the birds will sing and wedding bells will ring. Some day—"

"You can open the chamber now, Captain Rogers. His body has stabilized. It'll be any minute now."

Steve jolted at the sudden announcement, despite his waiting, feeling suddenly rushed. Steve leaned towards the cryo chamber, seeing Bucky clearly for the first time in forever that wasn't an off grey security feed. He put his hand on the glass tube and felt condensation collect on his palm before it moved with a hiss of air pressure. Bucky looked like he was sleeping, less corpse like, though he was still pale and chilled to the touch. With clumsy hands, Steve undid the straps that tethered Bucky down. Steve saw Bucky's nose flair. "Hey," said Steve, so softly the audio recorder couldn't possibly have picked it up. "You're alright now. You're alright." Steve ran his hands through Bucky's dampening hair and drew faint trails of heat along his forehead and neck. Steve saw Bucky's eyes move around beneath his lids and the slightest flicker of his long, dark lashes. Steve stood, his forehead almost pressed to Bucky's, watching his lips turn from white to blue; from purple to the most bashful blushing of pink. Even though there was a doctor in the observation room and security footage being archived from five different angles, Steve felt like the two of them were alone in the world. Steve kissed him and heard a choir in his head, blending with wartime carousing in a bombed out bar. Everything felt right, like everything had been building to this moment.

Steve felt Bucky's jaw tick and heard that small intimate sound of someone being roused from sleep. Steve pulled back a little, one hand still cupping Bucky's face and the other reaching down for his hand. Bucky's eyes fluttered and opened, revealing sleepy bluish grey eyes like waves crashing against a rocky bluff.

"Hey, punk."

"Hey, Buck."

End.

* * *

Brownie points for you if you know all of my movie, literary and musical references. If you'd like me to cite them just so you have the list let me know and I'll add it on. This is one of my favorite short pieces that I've written in a while so I'd love to hear what you all think of it.


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